The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) concedes it has managed to expose the names and email addresses of dozens of rejected intelligence job applicants in an embarrassing internal stuff-up.
On Tuesday it admitted it had sent a group email with recipients accidentally placed in the open CC (carbon copy) addressee field rather than the shielded BCC (blind carbon copy) field — even though the spy agency requires jobseekers to keep their applications strictly secret.
The fat-fingered fumble has sent recruiters and senior staff into a flurry of activity to fix the data breach, contacting erroneous recipients to apologise and tell them to delete the rogue email — if you are not meant to tell your mates or parents you’ve applied for a job with ASIO, you definitely are not meant to forward them the email with all the other people who never got an offer that they accidentally sent you, LOL. \_(ツ)_/
“On 6 July 2023, an email was sent externally to a number of individuals. The person sending the email made an unfortunate and regrettable error,” an unnamed ASIO spokesperson told The Mandarin. “This was a human error that should not have occurred. ASIO takes mistakes of this kind extremely seriously.
“We have reached out to each individual — in writing and over the phone — to own our mistake and sincerely apologise.”
Does “owning” said mistake also involve a gentle reminder to delete the errant message and a check to make sure it has not been circulated, with a little rap on the knuckles for anyone who cheekily replied-all to all the other intended recipients.
At least it wasn’t the successful candidate list. That would have really been awkward.
In some respects ASIO is a victim of its own success, having grown substantially over the past five years to the size where it needs to run a fairly persistent recruitment effort rather than the good old days of cherrypicking some of the brightest university students for a life in the intelligence services.
While the more public front door attracts more interest, it also means it’s exposed to a higher number of individuals convinced they have something special to offer, like psychic powers and the ability to communicate with others using just thoughts. Mind you it’s a two-way street.
The inspector-general of intelligence and security (IGIS), which monitors ASIO and is where the big BCC stuff-up will be officially logged for the public, is also known to get correspondence and communications from concerned individuals convinced of plots and collusion within spy agencies.
In years gone by, IGIS annual reports have contained references to the volume of work consumed by assessing such complaints; one referred to the implausibility of mind control using terrestrial television.
This piece was first published by The Mandarin.
